


Ride My Rancor

by JediMordsith



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Minor peril, apparently, idek, this is my brain on Courtship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 22:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16273730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediMordsith/pseuds/JediMordsith
Summary: Truth serums are shavit... especially when you're tied up with the one woman in the galaxy you'd really like to ride your rancor.





	Ride My Rancor

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm listening to the audiobook of Courtship of Princess Leia. One minute I'm rolling my eyeballs straight to the back of my head at Leia swooning over Isolder... and the next I'm swooning like a Harlequin protagonist over Luke. It's ridiculous, and so is this (mostly unedited) one-shot I spit out because I couldn't help it. Enjoy.

Luke’s first thought was that a jerbwat had somehow crawled into the back of this throat, died and rotted while he was asleep. His second thought was the floor was cold. And damp. Why couldn’t he move?

Oh, right. The rope. Heavy, spaceport-grade coils of it wrapped around him viciously snug.

Whatever they’d tied him to was deliciously warm. So that was something. Luke twisted his hands, trying to see if he could work them against the heat, thaw them out a little.

“Keep going and you’re going to owe me dinner.”

Luke started, smacking the back of his head against something hard. “Ow!... Mara?”

There was a wet, spitting sound. Then, “you’re still high as a kriffing dragon kite, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am.”

Wait… _what_? He hadn’t meant to say that.

“I didn’t mean to say that.” He hadn’t meant to say that either. “I think I’m drugged.”

There was a snort from behind him. “It’s xebonica. Heavy doses. Probably why you couldn’t keep up filtering it out.”

“Tastes like jerbwat.” Luke flushed. He needed to concentrate on getting the drug out of his system – Force only knew what appalling things he’d spout if his brain stayed addled much longer.

“Jerbwat another delectable Tatooine stew ingredient?”

The sarcasm in Mara’s tone was familiar, but something was wrong with her voice. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. Get filtering.”

“I don’t believe you.” Shavit. Luke doubled down on his attempts to concentrate – it was _hard_.

Mara ignored him.

Luke thought he might be making some headway. Then, “you have a fever. That’s why you’re so warm.” The words just fell out his mouth.

“ _Filter_ , Skywalker,” she growled.  

He twisted, trying to find a slightly less uncomfortable position on the cold stone floor. “I haven’t been this tied up since Tenenniel’s hut.”

_Oh, Force._

“Tenenniel?” Pause. “Skywalker, Tenenniel _Djo_?” 

“It wasn’t serious,” he heard himself say. _Filter, filter, FILTER!!_ “She just wanted daughters.”

Mara laughed, a full, rare chortle. It still sounded wrong, but Luke was taken aback by the warmth that rushed through him at the sound. Rushed directly to… very inconvenient places, actually. _Shavit._

“She climbed you like a tree, huh?”

“Well, Han’s phrase is more accurate. I _was_ kind of tied down – a lot. I mean, I could have gotten out of it – with the Force – but she was really pretty, so…” _Shut up, shut up, shut UP._

“I can only imagine Solo’s eloquence.”

“I don’t want to tell you.” Luke bit his tongue.

Mara lay silent. Waiting.

“She rode my rancor. Several times.” Force _dammit!_

There was a snuffling noise, and then Luke felt Mara shaking at his back.

He closed his eyes and resisted the urge to bang his head into the floor. Of all the people to ramble at while he was drugged out of his mind and babbling, it had to be _Mara_.

“I wish it wasn’t you.”

Mara went still.

“I need to stop talking.”

“You can’t say anything that will hurt me, Skywalker.” Her voice was cool, distant, suddenly.

“That’s a lie.”

His legs jerked as she tried to kick him, but the motion cut off with a sharp gasp on her side.

“You’re hurt.” Luke squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself for not being able to pull together the concentration to keep his mouth shut and filter the damn drugs out of his system. “You’re hurt and you won’t tell me. And if I can’t get this karking drug out of my system you’re never going to come back to the Academy.”

“You’re going incoherent on me,” the faintest trace of worry strayed into Mara’s voice.

“No,” Luke said, miserably. “You like people who are good at things - useful things. If I could do this you might be impressed. Come back.”

“You’re apparently good in the sack if Tenenniel kept you tied up for more than one round.”

Weariness washed over him and Luke slumped against his bonds. He needed – he couldn’t remember what he needed. He drifted, too dismayed and exhausted and horrified with himself to stay awake.

* * *

 

Someone was shaking him. He moved his head restlessly, trying to ignore the sensation, but it persisted. The floor was still cold beneath his cheek, but his back was burning up. A wracking cough finally yanked him awake.

“Mara?” his voice was groggy to his own ears, but his head wasn’t as spinny.

“Still here.”

She sounded terrible and Luke’s heart rate sped up. “Mara -.”

“There’s a razor blade,” she coughed. “In a -,” _cough_ “hidden pocket-,” _cough_ “in my dress. If I,” her breath became a wheeze. “Move, can you try for it? You’re – probably – sober enough – not to kill us – now.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.” Luke squirmed against the bonds. The rope scraped at his skin as he twisted his wrists. Mara moved, too, jutting a hip closer to his hands.

“Smashbone fever.”

Luke froze.

“They thought – when my bones rupture -,” she dissolved into a fit of coughing.

“They’ll impale me,” Luke said, numbly. “Two avians with one stone.”

“If we can cut loose,” she gasped, bumping him with her hip. “You’ll be all right.”

“I can get us out,” he said, grasping a handful of her dress. “If I can get the drug out enough to concentrate -.”

“Down,” she interrupted, hoarsely. “Behind my thigh.”

Luke worked his hand across both fabric and skin. It was soft against his fingers, and his brain sparked in multiple directions at once. He wanted his hands on her thighs properly – his mouth, too. He’d bet his x-wing she tasted _amazing_.

“Tied up?” Mara rasped. “Or not?”

“Oh Force, please tell me I didn’t say that out loud.” Kriffing xebonica - she was his _friend_. He was never going to be able to look her in the eye again. This was an emergency – survival. She was going to die, agonizingly, and if he couldn’t -.

There was noise beyond the door. Luke went still, his hand curved around the back of Mara’s leg. Blaster bolts in the corridor. Close. Mara squirmed and Luke jerked his hand away – their captors couldn’t know she had something concealed -.

The door fell in with a resounding clang. Han stood in the cloud of smoke of and dust, a New Republic team at his back.

 “Hey, Kid. That looks cozy.”

* * *

 

Luke tapped at the doorframe of Mara’s tiny medbay room.

“Skywalker.”

She turned her head toward him and he frowned. “You didn’t tell me they hit you.”

She shrugged, unconcerned about the deep black splotch that swallowed her eyes, her split lips, and or obvious damage to her left cheekbone. “You wouldn’t have concentrated.”

He sat gingerly on the edge of her bed. “Didn’t manage much of that as it was,” he said, chagrined. “They said you’ll be all right. They caught the infection early enough.”

She nodded, lifted a hand to gesture toward his head. “Got you sorted out, too, I assume.”

“Good as new.” He gave her a half smile. “I’ll be dedicating time to practicing filtering in the next couple weeks. I won’t be caught like that again.” He stood. “You should rest.”

Mara’s swollen eyes flickered over his face. “Skywalker. About the Academy -,” her fingers worked unhappily against the bleached sheets. “It’s not your skills. Why I don’t come back. I don’t – you’re a good teacher. And – a good Jedi.”

Peace settled over Luke like a cloak, the words healing something inside him he couldn’t name. “Thank you,” he said, softly.

Mara scowled and waved the words away. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

He smiled at her. “Maybe.” He wanted to reach for her hand, but made himself step away instead. “Sleep well, Jade.”

He’d gotten most of the way to the door when her voice came once more.

“Skywalker.”

He turned. There was an unexpected calculating brightness in her blackened eyes, a distinctively suggestive quirk to her split lips.

“If you want to practice getting out of binds like what we were in, I’m happy to help.” She cocked her head. “You know. Just for… practical reasons. So you don’t get caught out again.”

For a second, Luke just gaped. “Are you -?” he stopped, speechless. Then he grinned, everything inside him bursting with happiness. “Mara Jade, are you offering to _ride my rancor_?”

“Tenenniel is a demanding woman. If she was satisfied, it’s worth a try.” Mara shrugged a shoulder, carelessly, but Luke caught a pang of uncertainty – vulnerability – in the Force. Just a whiff, but it turned his insides to mush.

Striding back to the bed, he leaned over her, cupping her battered face carefully in one hand. “Get well, Mara, and I’ll make it the best ride you’ve ever had.”

* * *

 

A little dazed by the unexpected turn of events, Luke wandered into the Cruiser’s mess hall.

“Hey, Kid.” Han waved him over. “You all right?” he asked, seriously, when Luke dropped down opposite him. “I saw the med report – xebonica is nasty stuff.”

In spite of himself, Luke smiled, wryly. “I would never have signed up for it,” he agreed. “But… it sure gets results.”


End file.
